Courtesy: Google
On Saturday, August 24, Anders Antonsen, the Denmark shuttler, who is the number four men’s singles player in the world, sacked his personal coach Joachim Persson. The 27-year-old took to his official Instagram account to claim that his personal coach was “placing bets” on matches during the Japan Open, which led to the decision to terminate his contract.
Notably, as per the report from the Indian Express, Joachim Persson was involved in a scandal back in 2019, for which he was banned by the Badminton World Federation (BWF) for a year and a half. Although he didn’t agree with the decision of the BWF at the time, calling it “totally ridiculous.”
Anders Antonsen released a statement on Instagram about sacking Joachim Persson with immediate effect, the excerpts of it read, “The other day I by coincidence got to see my coach placing bets on one match taking place in the arena. As a coach of one player competing in the BWF, this is a violation.”
“As a player competing in the BWF you’re obligated to report such behavior as soon as it comes to your knowledge. Failing not to report such information would be a violation on the BWF code of conduct. I want to distance myself from this behavior and therefore the only option has been to report and terminate our agreement,” the Denmark shuttler added.
After talking about his accomplishment in badminton alongside Joachim Perrson, the world number was gutted about how their association ended. He wrote, “I’m absolutely gutted and sick to my stomach that this is the way our ways end. would like to clarify that I don’t know anything about the duration of this behavior. I know about one single incident of placing bets on a random match – but that for me is enough. Also the match didn’t include myself!”
